Various apparatus for stacking on a laying plane formed by a table, mobile or not, individual cardboard blanks which are subsequently intended to constitute packings, are known at the present time. Certain of these laying planes are constituted by groups of planar bands, for example by means of parallel bars or with the aid of belts, regularly spaced apart and parallel to the direction of advance of the blanks supplying the stack.
These apparatus thus allow a sufficient imbrication between the spaced apart parallel planar bands constituting the laying plane, of means for frontally stopping the blanks, or stops, on the one hand, and/or of means for laterally jolting these blanks between the planar bands, on the other hand. Such an imbrication ensures, at the beginning of the formation of the stack of blanks, a frontal contact with the lower parts of the stops and/or the lateral jolter elements, i.e. avoids the first blanks being introduced beneath these means for aligning the edges of the stacked blanks, which would decrease the quality of jolting of the stacks constituted in their lower part. This contact is then naturally maintained when the stack increases, as long as its height does not exceed the capacity of the blank edge alignment means.
Whether it be produced by a series of discontinuous supports and/or notches at a predefined pitch in a table adapted to the maximum width occupied by the blanks, this technique of imbrication presents drawbacks of complexity of design and/or of adjustment, being given the multiplicity of the parts necessary for making these discontinuous zones and/or their change of lateral position, with respect to the direction of advance of the blanks, which is caused by a change of format of the blanks.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a blank stacking apparatus comprising a stacking/jolting table assembly of particularly simple design which no longer depends on a predefined pitch for adjustments in the lateral direction.